Chapter 4
Drak
After watching Lux train against Sif, Mista, and Axel, I demanded she take the rest of today to relax while I stole away to my workshop. She would not collapse because of me, and since I swore to be honest, I had to admit that I needed a moment for myself, too.
Smoothing my hand over the black spruce wood, I admired the length of the new shelf for Lux’s favorite room. This dark wood balanced the cool feel of the grey stone and brought a deep warmth to the library. I flexed my hand, remembering the chill of her blue fingers in my palm.
Last evening in the library was the first time she’d allowed me to hold her since she returned to Mara’s Keep.
No doubt she had scolded herself harshly for kissing me when she showed up at my doorstep, and then punished herself for being near me these past few weeks.
The gods twisted her every thought and feeling away from me.
Everyone told her not to trust me when I was the only one who didn’t lie to her.
Even that bastard Kayn took advantage of Lux’s vulnerability and her desire to please the gods her mother had taught her to worship.
Though I should probably thank him for helping Lux escape her sister at our wedding, I fucking hated him.
He only wanted to use her, but she’d never acknowledge it.
Especially not since the gods had the same goal as the Exile.
Blinking, I reached for the drawknife.
If the library was Lux’s sanctuary, this workshop was mine.
The small room was nothing like the peaked ceiling and open space of the throne room or the armory, but being here quieted my mind.
Working with my hands provided a peace unmatched by sparring Axel in the armory or relishing the view from my throne.
Building from raw materials was an ancient comfort, something as old as the gods.
Even Odin created humans out of a log of wood before blowing his breath of life into them. Though I despised him, and was nothing like that selfish prick, who the fuck was I to deny this primal instinct to create? I was human once, and the instinct remained.
I flipped the plank of wood over and laid it flat on the table. Gripping both handles of the drawknife, I leaned forward and dragged it across the rough surface. Multiple strokes rendered this side smooth, finally matching its other half.
I swore the rhythm of cutting, smoothing, carving, and even the fine detailing made my heart beat, but it was only the thump of the blade against wood. If I were still living, no doubt my heart would pump from the effort. Now it only pooled with black blood, frozen in time without a pulse.
The work grounded me, as if I were a shipbuilder or a simple farmer. Like a man Lux would have known in Skaldir. Shaping unrefined wood into something polished, exquisite, and useful brought me to life more than anything. Except for Lux’s touch.
But that wasn’t happening again—we weren’t happening—because if I allowed myself to touch her more than for warmth, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
I huffed, leaning over the slab and dragging the drawknife back. My repeated cuts stripped away layers, their robust rhythm keeping Lux from my mind. Her rejection. Her suffering. Her. Just her.
Damn it, why was I so obsessed?
I stopped, jolting my spine straight when her accusation crossed my mind.
Did I only want to control her? Was that why I couldn’t get her out of my head?
From the moment I saw her in Skaldir, I was inevitably drawn to the challenge of her, but like carving, the need for her felt deeper and more primal than something as simple as a challenge.
Palming my forehead, I shoved loose hair back and shook my head. Though the slab was perfectly smooth now, satisfaction didn’t come. I tossed the drawknife onto the slab, where the edge of the handle left a nick. Later I’d chisel and carve shapes into the surface anyway.
I dropped back into a chair and scrubbed my palm over my face as if I could wipe Lux from my mind as easily as I wiped the hair from my eyes.
Her pale cheeks flashed behind my eyelids.
That last fight left her wincing, and every time she winced, sparks of rage shot through my dead veins.
If the gods got louder each time she wielded that stake against vampires, the madness was closer than I thought.
She’d put up a good fight for weeks, months even, and far longer than my mother had lasted with Odin and Freya screaming into her skull. But it was all coming to a head now.
I rubbed my eyes and released a sigh. After diving this deep into the gods’ games, binding herself to me likely wouldn’t work to free her from the damage they’d already caused.
It didn’t work when my mother bound herself to King Roderic.
She was already too far gone, and King Roderic, the fucker, never deserved her.
But maybe if I convinced Lux of this fake marriage, at least it’d draw Silver here. We could get this battle done and over with and then march straight to Yggdrasil.
When I became a god, I’d relish destroying Odin, making him suffer and pay for his sins.
For taking everything from me, I swore to do the same to him.
Fuck, it would feel so good to know he wasn’t toying with Lux anymore, using her as his tool, just as Freya did, just as Kayn did. Just as they did with my mother.
My hands curled into fists at my thighs, and I couldn’t help but envision what it would be like to free her.
Who would Lux be without their words tainting her? Hurting her? I already knew the answer. She’d still be the same fiery Skald, insistent on spreading the sagas and learning the histories.
A fighter. A survivor.
My eyes snapped open again. I couldn’t keep going in circles, thinking of her, obsessing over this damn need I had to claim her as my wife. Each time I got caught in a cycle of these thoughts, I found myself desperate, stiff as the wood I was carving, and only finding relief with my fist.
Now was no different.
The moment the thought of her as my wife crossed my mind, my cock strained against my trousers. I frowned.
Fuck it. I was already hard, and I was helpless to stop thinking of her. Letting my eyes fall shut again, I leaned back into the chair.
“My wife,” I whispered.
Images of her face flashed in my mind, and the scent of her followed, along with the lustful thoughts she’d had when she let herself trust me, until a single, clear image overwhelmed my senses: the wedding we almost had.
Her walking down the aisle toward me, draped in the dress she was to speak her vows in.
I adjusted the fabric of my trousers, freeing my cock from the restraint.
Wrapping my fingers around the length, I tightened my hold, and a grunt escaped me.
“My queen.” I dragged my hand up and back. More of Lux flooded my senses. Her soft lips. The taste between her thighs. When she looked at me like I was a damn Viking hero for having visited Yggdrasil before.
Just like the rhythm of the drawknife, I found a steady cadence of pleasure. My cock twitched, tipping me closer to release with every detail I recalled of our wedding before it all blew up.
Lux was almost mine, mine.
I was moments away from her vowing herself to me, an undead monster—something I never thought I could really have, not with a woman who saw me as both a monster and a man, but also as a warrior.
I wasn’t really a king; I was here to fight for revenge, and Lux recognized that the first time she looked at me.
I groaned into the silent room as I thought of our more delicious moments together. Memories of her spine against my chest, her legs bare and splayed open on the outside of my lap, my fingers between them. She’d dripped for me, so wet, so needy.
My clever killer was as dark as me, the same as me. Even her own thoughts acknowledged this, and I’d heard every word. Then she’d forced me on my knees to beg for her hand in marriage.
I’d beg again if it’d work.
I’d kneel in front of her and push up her skirts, licking along her soaking core just as I had in the library when I first teased her. When I first tried to convince her to marry me.
And it’d nearly worked. She’d melted into me, desperate for her own release because she wanted me as much as I wanted her. My cock grew more sensitive, twitching again as I pictured her walking toward her groom.
Voices in the hall almost pulled me from this pleasure.
“To the library, Miss Lux?” Axel asked, his tone muffled by the door.
“That’s right,” she said. “To study every rune I can find.”
As soon as her voice reached my ears, and as soon as she mentioned runes, a strange memory flooded me.
This ripped me away from the present and threw into a dreamlike image of Lux marching down the aisle, dressed in a simple sky blue gown, her hair darker, her eyes no longer a pool of black ink, and this time, she smiled at me.
Wanting me. She stopped in front of me, and when she reached up to touch my jaw, pulling me into a binding kiss before an altar, I almost came.
When my eyes shot open, I clutched at my tightening throat, my pleasure cut short with the shock of what I’d seen. “What the fuck was that?”
What had my mind conjured? An end to the wedding that had been stolen away? That didn’t make sense. Lux wasn’t even wearing the same dress. We weren’t in the throne room. The walls, the altar, that wasn’t even in Mara’s Keep…
A soft knock startled me, even though I knew Axel had been nearby.
“Sustenance?” It was all he said, knowing I hadn’t fed for several days. That had to explain this bizarre incident. I was just…hungry. Once I had blood in my belly, I’d forget all about it.
“I’m coming,” I said, a smirk on my lips for the choice of words. I was an idiot.